


restart and install updates

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cured Dean, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, s10, smooching and cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:11:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2452601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up in the dungeon of the bunker with no recollection of the past few months. The only clue he gets is an IV attached to his arm and a pale, unmoving little brother at the other end of that IV. A fic about what happens after Dean is cured, includes both angst and a bit of lighter topics (like smooching).</p>
            </blockquote>





	restart and install updates

Dean’s first thought is that this is the worst fucking hangover he’s ever had in his entire life, which is saying something. His mouth tastes like chalk and iron and his bones feel old and welded to the ground, rusted at the joints after years of disuse. His throat feels itchy and he realizes he’s groaning, squeezing his eyes shut tight before willing them to open.

He goes to rub his eyes and his hands are too heavy, and a metallic clanking accompanies his every movement. Blinking lethargically, he looks down at himself. He’s lying on his back on cold, bumpy cement. His hands are chained together and chained to the wall. His feet are also chained together, and his shirt is impeccably clean.

Dean’s spidey senses that something is really,  _really_  unfixably wrong start making themselves apparent. His eyes and mind have cleared considerably and he knows this is the dungeon. Why is he chained up in the dungeon? Why does he feel so  _dead?_

His breath catches in his throat and his thoughts cling to that word, repeating it over and over and sending waves of nausea up his throat. Dead. He was dead. The last thing he can remember is feeling the mark digging into his soul, poisoning it, and telling Sam that he was proud of them before just letting go. He was so damn  _tired_. It felt like a small moment of lucidity after months of blind, Cain-powered fury. He tries to sit up, because maybe somehow that’d help him get answers, but the chain is too short and he’s out of breath after a minute of struggling.

That’s when he notices the tube snaking out of his forearm and across the room, where he hadn’t bothered to look. He’d been too busy wrapped in the immediate vicinity of himself and figuring out what the fuck was happening.

The tube is empty, but it was definitely being used as an IV. He rolls onto his side with some difficulty and follows the IV with his eyes over to where it ends, lying on the ground next to the dead-white, still body of his little brother.

Dean blinks.

Nope, still there. He closes his eyes and tries not to vomit. None of this is making any sense and his brain can’t keep up, he’s fallen asleep during the most important thirty minutes of the movie and the plot isn’t coherent anymore. He looks over Sam for a sign of life. The parts of Sam that aren’t whiter than a sheet are a mottled painting of purple, blue and green. Bruises spread across his eyes, his jaw, and in the formation of hands around his throat. His nose was now crooked, skewing to the left slightly.

Mottled, pink skin, obviously from burns, starts at his collarbone and ends at the corner of his mouth, pulling it down into a perpetual frown. Dean doesn’t want to think about what other injuries hide beneath Sam’s clothes. 

And there’s also the fact he isn’t fucking moving, his mouth is parted slightly and all his muscles are relaxed like he’s just taking a cat nap, and Dean knows that isn’t true. An empty bag, stained red at the bottom, hangs above Sam’s head. Sam’s blood to Dean’s body. There’s only one reason for that. Dean’s head spins. 

He doesn’t want to think about that right now, doesn’t want to think about his missing time. He wants to think about Sam, wants to worry over him like a panicked mother and smother him to death with a goddamn hug. Not actually death, though. He can’t deal with that again. Not so soon after last time, after what he did and what happened because of it. 

Dean shoves away the guilt. He army-crawls over to Sam, and the chain lets him get within arm’s length of him. “Sam,” he croaks, and winces. The words grated through his throat and came out like grains of sand. He licks his lips, swallows, and tries again. “Sam,” he repeats, more desperately, reaching out and rattling Sam by the shoulder. He hopes he’s not hurting him any further.

Sam doesn’t stir. Dean doesn’t have time for this. If Sam doesn’t wake up, Dean’s gonna lay back down and close his eyes and just fucking die. If he’s been brought back somehow, either by Sam or shitty nefarious forces, he doesn’t need his second chance at life if Sam’s dead again.

He chuckles bitterly at that sentence.  _Again._  This is so fucked. When Sam’s all patched up and good as new he’s not going to leave him alone for the rest of his life. They’ll have movie nights every night and Dean will even let him pick the movie. 

Using the last reserves of his strength, he knits his finger’s between Sam’s cold ones and squeezes. He shakes Sam hard enough that his entire body quakes. “Sammy,” Dean begs hoarsely, eyes roaming uselessly over his brother, waiting for Sam to blink and smile and laugh and tell him he was just kidding. 

He’s proven half right.

Sam’s pinky twitches, tapping minutely against his palm. Dean freezes, unsure if he dreamed it up, and watches Sam raptly. 

Sam’s eyebrows draw together, forming lines on his forehead, and his mouth opens slightly further. He makes a small sound and turns his head toward Dean. 

"Come on, come on, you’re doing so well, just open your eyes, Sammy," Dean encourages, rambling little compliments at his brother like he’d done when he was teaching Sam how to ride a bike. Dad didn’t see the point, but he’d had a hunt to go kill so Dean had had the day with Sam and stole the kid down the street’s bike for Sam. It wasn’t like he’d been using it, anyway. Sam had been a fast learner but had still ended up with scraped knees, no matter what Dean’s voice had urged. But he always had to try.

Sam jerks awake, going from 45% loaded to 100% in a second. His eyes are wide, pupils dilating in the low light, scoping around the ceiling until his eyes meet Dean’s. 

His eyes narrow, and he gets onto his hands and knees with effort. He backs away from Dean, like one would with a spooked lion at the zoo. His hand scrabbles for the IV and he rolls up his sleeve. The inside of his arm is dark and riddled with puncture wounds.

"Sammy?" Dean asks, remaining on his stomach and watching his brother with open confusion. "Are you alright? My god, how much fucking blood did you take? Jesus christ, kiddo, if you even think about drawing more blood I will kick your ass. Just calm down and come over here, okay? No more blood. You’re injured. Sammy, please."

Dean notices two things at once: one, he’s outright begging, pleading with his brother, and two, Sam had stilled, watching him with a hooded, unreadable look. 

"Are you joking?" Sam asks him in a voice only slightly higher than that of a pin dropping.

Dean pauses for a second to collect his thoughts. “Why the fuck would I be joking? Do you need a hospital?” he finally replies.

Dean flinches when he’s met with a laugh. Sam’s eyes are now wide and hopeful, and he scoots closer. “It’s you?” he breathes, his mouth hanging open with awe.

Dean softens. All his other concerns melt away when he’s met with Sam’s little quirked smile. “It’s really me, Sammy. And now we just have to-“

Sam interrupts him by swiping his arm with Ruby’s knife, quickly and deftly, leaving a small cut that bleeds a single line of red down his arm.

Dean hugs his arm closer to his torso. “Sam, what the fuck!” he barks, tensing up. 

"Human," Sam whispers, like worship, and Dean’s brain puts two and two together and he really doesn’t want to think about it right now. "You’re human."

"Yeah, I won the fucking lottery!" Dean retorts sarcastically. "Will you untie me and let me sit up now, please?"

Sam laughs like a maniac, half crazed, half ridiculous joy. He laughs like someone who had just been given everything they ever wanted or who had been told by god that they were the coolest and a spot remained for them upstairs on a gilded chair. His head is thrown back and his eyes shut, and he laughs again, swiping a hand over his face. 

Sam finally makes his way over to him, a huge grin threatening to rip his face in half. He rambles. “I changed your clothes, I washed your face, and I fed you, you know,” he tells Dean, “and you so fucking owe me for that. But it doesn’t really matter. I can’t believe it worked. I stayed in here with you because I thought it would help. You kept saying shit that I knew you wouldn’t say, not to  _me_ , not _ever,_  so I knew this time when you asked if I was okay that it finally worked.” He stops for breath and blushes, ducking his head and continuing his work.

He gently takes the chains away from Dean, frowning at the red marks on his wrists, and releasing his feet from their bindings. Dean sits up and leans back against the wall, closing his eyes and listening to his pulse race. He doesn’t have to look to know Sam is watching him like a hawk, taking him in like oxygen after being submerged. 

He hears rustling and looks to see Sam settling down next to him, their shoulders rubbing and thighs touching. The burns and broken nose mar Sam’s previously perfect profile, and he looks away.

"Did I do that to you?" he asks gingerly, waving a hand in the general direction of Sam’s face.

Sam’s puppydog-esque glee slithers away, and his features seem to harden, to gain years. “You didn’t mean to,” he whispers with conviction, meeting Dean’s eyes. “It wasn’t you.”

Dean swallows again, and this time he isn’t so sure he wants to be filled in on the moments he can’t remember. He almost killed Sam, for christ’s sake, and had to be cured. For all he knows, he’s murdered hundreds of tiny little children and innocent kittens.

"Stop thinking about that," Sam growls, reading his god damn mind. "What matters is now. You’re here." Sam’s hand snakes its way over to Dean’s, and Dean holds Sam’s hand, knows Sam needs it. Dean needs it, too. 

"I need to pass out," Sam croaks, laughing. "I’m exhausted."

Dean opens his mouth to reply, but Sam cuts him off.

"There’s something else I want to do, though," Sam muses, talking more to himself than to Dean. "I’ve finally got you back and I’m not hiding anything this time around."

Before Dean has a chance to ask, Sam’s lips are on his, and his little brother is fucking  _kissing_  him. Really well, too. Dean’s mouth responds before he can help it, opening up and letting Sam in, turning his head to give Sam better access even though it’s uncomfortable as all hell.

Sam finally breaks apart, looking at Dean in a way that means too much, that says too much, and Dean remembers Sam used to look at him like this, before it all went to hell. Before they went to hell. He feels as if they haven’t actually spoken in years, haven’t been on quite the same page, only a few words apart.

He knows Sam intends to change that, to break it all down, their bullshit masculine bravado, because there’s been too much. The end of their mutual ropes. He can tell from Sam’s simple look of simple love that things are going to change. Sam kisses him again, and Dean kisses back, before Sam slides down, resting his head in Dean’s lap and making a little satisfied noise before closing his eyes.

Dean threads his fingers through Sam’s hair, combing his hands through Sam’s soft hair and humming a Beatles song to him as Sam shifts and gets comfortable. In less than ten minutes, they’ve become more intimate than they had in ten years, and Dean couldn’t be more fucking grateful. There’s a long road of more issues and more fucking demons ahead of them, but right now his brother and the love of his life is trying to sleep in his lap and he’s not going to bother him.

Instead, he’s going to stay with him. This time, he won’t mess it up. He won’t break it. 

This time, Sam is his, and he’s Sam, and no shitty king of hell could ever come between them.


End file.
